London, 5 April 2012

Museums! Has there ever been such an abundance of galleries?

At least two exhibitions appealed to us. The first, was at the Museum of London.

The Museum of London

Dickens's London was everything one would expect - and more, for London was truly Dickens' muse. For us the most interesting part was the wide range of images from the middle years of the nineteenth century including paintings, sketches, and excerpts from journals such as the Illustrated London News. Best of all, many of the images and much of the text is included in a new publication, "Dickens's Victorian London.

Advertisement for the Exhibition

In the afternoon we went to Kensington Palace for the Victoria Revealed exhibition. Although it was cold, the flowers were out and looking just lovely.

A Flower Bed at Kensington Palace

Kensington Palace has had a makeover and in part this has involved the development of this wonderful exhibition about Queen Victoria. From the Red Saloon, where she held her first Privy Council to her own Jubilee, all is documented with an amazing collection of furniture, documents, clothing and pictures.

Victoria and her family, 1846

To lighten the day somewhat, between the galleries, we went to Hamleys. For those who may not know this is one of the world's great toy shops, dating back to 1760. There are seven floors covering 54,000 square feet all devoted to playthings, with different categories of toys on each floor. The store is overflowing with everything a child could wish for. This is a joyously happy place, not just for children but for the child in all of us. It is school holidays here and the queue outside at opening time waited with bated breath until the count-down began. When the doors flew open, the children were greeted by clowns, Alice in Wonderland and all sorts of delights. Even if our six teenage grandchildren would have appeared disinterested, be assured that the youngest two would have been most impressed.

Hamleys!!!

After a very full day in bitter temperatures we came back to the hotel to get packed for our next stop, an even colder Copenhagen.